LeCroy voyager verification platform to support USB 3.0

LeCroy has added a comprehensive exerciser capability for the Voyager M3 platform with support for both USB 2.0 and 3.0 traffic generation.
USB 3.0 was ratified in November 2008 and offers ten times the speed of USB 2.0 and backward compatibility with legacy devices. It features physical layer characteristics similar to PCI Express 2.0 including 5 GHz signaling that relies on link training to synchronize communication between devices. Early adopters may see USB 3.0 host controllers in late 2009 with consumer devices expected in 2010.

The Voyager M3 system now offers script-based traffic generation capabilities, including both host and device emulation. This allows users to transmit custom traffic patterns with low-level control of headers, payloads, timing, and link states. The Exerciser features ReadyLink emulation mode, which provides a full function USB 3.0 link layer implementation in hardware. ReadyLink automatically handles all USB 3.0 link layer handshakes to simplify the development of test scripts.

"Unlike USB 2.0, SuperSpeed USB protocol requires a nearly constant stream of low latency symbols to manage flow control and link status"; said Yiwei Wang, Vice President of Engineering at Chrontel. "The Voyager Exerciser manages the link which lets us focus on the logical USB data transfers. The system also includes hooks to inject errors at the link layer."

The exerciser software provides a flexible script-authoring environment that supports a powerful set of parser preprocessor features. This includes pre-defined templates for all USB 3.0 packet types, random string generators and procedure calls within a script. A library of sample scripts is included and illustrates how these techniques can be used to create efficient, reusable generation blocks. Users can also create test scenarios by exporting any traffic stream from a previously recorded analyzer trace file. These scripts can be played back using the Exerciser to recreate problems or test specific functionality.

The analyzer software has also been upgraded with several new features including advanced recording options including sequential event triggers. "SuperSpeed protocol with its 5 Gbps signaling can flood analysis tools with flow control and data traffic making it very difficult to capture specific events of interest." Said Mike Micheletti, Product Manager at LeCroy's Protocol Solutions Group. "Early adopters have found that the Voyager's hardware based triggering and filtering are critical for analyzer memory management and efficient testing."

Other enhancements include real-time statistics that are tracked in a graphical display. Useful for performance monitoring, this view shows link throughput and other protocol metrics in real-time. Automatic class decoding detects and assigns the appropriate higher level protocol mapping to trace files. An option to import and view emulation files in LeCroy's graphical trace viewer is also available.

The Voyager USB Protocol Suite software version 3.30 is currently available for download on the LeCroy web site. The Voyager Analyzer Exerciser system is available for immediate shipment.
LeCroy web site is at www.lecroy.com